GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Fresh from a two-year stint in federal prison, former gas station and convenience store owner Hai “Henry” Bui could be looking at time in state prison for illegally selling cigarettes.

Bui, 41, was released from federal prison on Aug. 27 after he was sentenced to 27 months behind bars in U.S. District Court in July 2011.

Bui pleaded guilty that year to charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., food-stamp fraud, WIC fraud and money laundering.

Bui was the owner of the Marathon C-Store on Burton Street SE near Kalamazoo Avenue. Court records indicate he no longer owns the business.

According to those records, Bui, his wife and employees would redeem food stamps and Women, Infants and Children program benefits for cash, cigarettes, phone cards, gasoline and other items ineligible to be purchased with the benefits at a markup of 100 percent or more.

Federal agents said program recipients would use their benefit cards in the scheme where Bui or an employee would swipe the card showing a charge for $100 and then give the card holder $50 in cash. The store would pocket the other $50.

In addition to prison time, Bui was also ordered to pay $197,235 in restitution, an amount he is appealing in federal court.

But even as Bui served his time at a federal prison in West Virginia, state police were building a case claiming that Bui sold cigarettes at the store without collecting the proper taxes.

Bui wrote Kent County Circuit Court Judge George Buth in August 2012, saying he was expecting to get out of prison soon and feared the state charge could complicate that.

In the letter, Bui said he was willing to pay any taxes and claimed he did not know he had failed to pay the taxes in the first place.

Bui was slated to be in court on Monday, Dec. 16, with his attorney Anastase Markou of Kalamazoo. No plea agreement was reached with the State Attorney General’s Office, meaning the case will be set for trial on Jan. 13 unless a plea is entered on that day.

Bui faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted, and the charge could violate his federal prison probation.